• Fluency is the ability to read quickly and accurately.

• Fluency promotes memory and applications.

• Research indicates that fluency in reading text is highly correlated to reading comprehension.

Fluency and Theory

• Theory of Automaticity

  • Higher levels of fluency allow students to be more developed in automaticity in their reading.

• Theory of Sight Word Efficiency

  • Having knowledge of the sight words is a key component for developing fluency in their reading.
  • These words are stored in their long term memory.

• Theory of Cumulative Deficit

  • Students in grades 3-12 learn 3,000 new vocabulary words each year.

• Theory/ Research of Processing Speed

  • Neuhaus and Swank (2002) found that the speed of naming letters is a basic reading test and that letter reading fluency predicts word reading accuracy.

Fluency and Stages of Reading Development

• Prereading

  • Focus on picture, what is going to happen in the story.

• Decoding

  • Grades 1-2
  • Fluency learning consists of building speed on identifying letter-sound relationships.
  • Students begin to sound out words.

• Confirmation and Fluency

  • Grade 3
  • Break the alphabetic code and reading speed dramatically increases.
  • Sight vocabulary increases.

• Reading to Learn

  • Grade 4-8
  • Fluency consists of teaching vocabulary and assessing oral and silent reading fluency.

• Reading for Multiple Viewpoints

  • Grades 9-12
  • Reader adds new sight vocabulary and learns to think and construct knowledge via words.

• Reading to Construct New Knowledge

Fluency Rate

• Four factors to consider are reading genre, maturity of reader, purpose of reading, and grade level.

  • Genre- If it is something they are interested in they are more likely to read faster.
  • Maturity of reader-Students who reach Confirmation and Fluency stage read more fluently that those in lower stages.
  • Purpose of reading-affects rate (studying for a test decreases the rate)
  • Grade level-difficulty of word varies across graded passages.

• Reading Fluency tests

  • DIBLES- Dynamic Indicators of Basic Emergent Literacy Skills
  • Put Reading First- Word per minute rates

• Fluency problems tend to emerge in fourth and fifth grade.

Success for All

• The Success for All Foundation's comprehensive programs are designed to engage the whole school in meeting the needs of all children.

• Our Instructional Design

  • Cooperative learning
  • Active instruction-teacher prepares students for learning
  • Partner practice
  • Assessment
  • Celebration
    

    

• Reading Roots

  • Reading Roots provides a strong base for successful reading due to its emphasis on systematic phonics instruction through FastTrack Phonics.
  • Begins in 1st grade
  • a ninety-minute comprehensive program that targets the needs of beginning readers. Reading Roots is a research-based beginning-reading program that provides a strong base for successful reading through systematic phonics instruction supported by decodable stories, along with instruction in fluency and comprehension.

• Reading Wings

  • Research-based reading curriculum that provides ninety-minute daily lessons over a period of five days and targets the needs of students reading on a second- through sixth-grade level who have successfully learned to decode but need to develop more sophisticated reading skills.

• KinderCorner

  • KinderCorner specifically targets language and literacy development through the discussion of thematic concepts to promote the children’s phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, and oral-language development.
  • Used in Kindergarten.